View article

Deforestation in mid- to high latitudes is hypothesized to have the potential to cool the Earth’s surface by altering biophysical processes^,,. In climate models of continental-scale land clearing, the cooling is triggered by increases in surface albedo and is reinforced by a land albedo–sea ice feedback^,. This feedback is crucial in the model predictions; without it other biophysical processes may overwhelm the albedo effect to generate warming instead. Ongoing land-use activities, such as land management for climate mitigation, are occurring at local scales (hectares) presumably too small to generate the feedback, and it is not known whether the intrinsic biophysical mechanism on its own can change the surface temperature in a consistent manner^,. Nor has the effect of deforestation on climate been demonstrated over large areas from direct observations. Here we show that surface air temperature is lower in open land …